Monday, 29 August 2016

A week or so ago I had an MRI on my knee, to address the
ongoing pain I have had since the accident when I
broke my ankle, at a private facility where I have been a number of
times; I’ve had two other MRIs there over the years, I now have my
mammograms there, and it is also the centre where I had both my HSGs. The first was clear,
and as happens quite frequently (anecdotally at least), I conceived only days
afterwards. That pregnancy was my second ectopic pregnancy that required a number of
interventions over a period of months, and afterwards I needed another HSG that showed both my tubes
were now blocked. The blocked tubes meant that my fertility efforts (having already exhausted
IVF and other options) were now definitively over. It was scheduled for my birthday, and I’d naively
gone to the appointment (as I’ve gone to all appointments at this facility)
alone.

Almost 13 years later, comfortable with my life without
children, I still choose to sit on the opposite side of the waiting room as I
did back in 2003, I still look at the corridor I walked down (and back) for those
HSGs, and I still remember standing at the reception paying for the procedure
afterwards, holding it together. Getting into the car to leave, even when
everything has gone well, still reminds me of getting into the car that day,
when I wasn’t so good at holding it together. It doesn’t hurt as much now, but
I will always remember.

Friday, 26 August 2016

I cringed a little, when I saw that TVNZ was going to run a documentary series
following eight couples going through infertility over a period of two years.
It was, inevitably, titled Inconceivable, and “follows the highs and lows of
ordinary Kiwis trying to conceive.”

I recorded it, but due to my misgivings, waited a few weeks
before watching. The other night it felt right, and I ended up watching the
first four episodes, finally falling into bed around 1 am.

Other than at the beginning, there is no commentary. The voice-over is purely informative – eg ,couple D are going in for their 2nd egg
collection today, etc. This is the (edited, obviously) story of the couples
in their own words, and the words of their medical professionals.

The introduction of just a few sentences notes that nearly 1
in 4 couples will face difficulties when trying to conceive. It mentions that
this is a journey that now often ends in failure, and has no guarantee of
success. It notes that with each couple, their constant companion is hope.

The eight couples are a mix of ages, gender preferences,
ethnic groups and diagnoses, although they are all couples. Seven are trying
for their first child together (though some have children with previous
partners), whilst the eighth are trying to conceive their third, having had
successful IVF cycles for the first two. There is male factor infertility,
unexplained infertility, genetic conditions causing repeated miscarriage, and a
same-sex couple. There are a variety of treatments – IUI, IVF, ICSI, and donor
egg IVF.

The medical experts – both doctors, nurses, and lab
technicians – on the programme explain very clearly and simply the medical
issues, the processes that the couples go through, and the chances for success.
One doctor notes the myriad things that need to go right before they can get a
take-home baby. We get to see them going through all the procedures – their
first injections, egg collection, sperm extraction for ICSI, egg transfer, IUI,
work done in the lab, blood tests, laparoscopies, HSGs, ultrasounds, and
dildocam. They show the embryo photos that each couple receives.

There is no doubt of the emotional stress each couple goes
through. There are no holds barred. A couple is shown being told that their
pregnancy had failed at 8 weeks, we see the stress of the 2ww or of having a
cycle cancelled, we wait with them to receive the phone calls
from the clinic, and we see them receiving the news that they are pregnant or
not. One husband describes egg collection as “brutal.” Another couple says, “'The
further you get into it the more you have to lose.” A woman looks at her
husband after a failed cycle, and says, “I’m sorry.” After yet another negative, they say in frustration, “there's
no control. It doesn't matter what you do.” One woman says, "I'm not
sure how you're not supposed to be stressed!" Anotherwoman says, “you feel
broken" and another couple talks about losing sight of their relationship by
focusing on treatment. Two of the woman talk about the real problems of stress
eating. One woman said that she’d been married for 18 years, but had never
bought anything for a baby, because the prospect that it would never be used
was too heartbreaking. One or two of the couples take breaks in the process,
trying to reduce their stress levels.

They show a counsellor talking to the couple who have
miscarried, and one of the most experienced and well-known specialists in the
country talks to another couple about the different emotional experiences of
men and women.

The financial costs are not emphasised, but not ignored
either. The requirements for public funding are talked about when relevant. We
hear that one couple has had to save for six years after their first IVF cycle
to have another chance, a chance which the doctor then gives them as about 40%.
We see another woman desperately losing weight to qualify for public funding,
and another talks about using up all their savings. The lesbian couple had to
find a private donor because it was financially more affordable than working
through a clinic (and besides, there were no donors available through the
clinic), until they could qualify for public funding.

There is humour. One guy laughs that in his first
examination with the doctor, knowing that he had a zero sperm count, the doctor
said to him, “I’m going to cop a feel.” Another couple giggled about the fact
that the mother-in-law asked when her son-in-law was going in to make his
“donation.” “Every man’s dream,” he said wryly. Another woman laughs (sort of)
about clomiphene (clomid), explaining to the camera that it is “the drug that
turns you into a monster.” The lesbian woman said that, having announced to
friends that yet another IUI had failed, someone said to her, “never mind, it
will happen when you least expect it to.” The couples laugh, showing how brave
they are when you can see that tears are so very close too.

Public pressure and insensitivity is also discussed. The
comment the lesbian woman received was particularly ridiculous, but they all
feel under pressure. They get annoying comments and suggestions from siblings
and parents. The Tongan man said he was mocked, and that his brothers have all
offered their “help” to get his wife pregnant. He shrugged, saying they’re
trying to be helpful, but you can see how those comments have hurt. Another
woman was told that she and her husband needed God in their lives. One of the
women notes that Facebook is “baby central,” and pregnancy announcements by
friends, after trying for only after 2 months, are hard to take.

The couples talk about their conviction that they want to be
parents. One couple says, "we feel it's meant to happen, we're meant to be
parents," but then note that “a child would be the icing on the cake, not
the be all and end all.”

The whole approach taken in the series is calm, honest,
sensitive. My nervousness at the outset was that the documentary would be filled
with myths, that it would try and hide the emotional, physical and financial
stresses. Whilst it is very understated in manner, all these issues are
addressed. One couple did get pregnant a month or so after finishing their
clomiphene cycles, but the words “miracle” or “just relax” weren’t uttered.

In the end, after two years following these couples, there were
conceptions through IVF, miscarriages and births, one using donor egg, and the
others using their own eggs. Some couples are left facing life without children
or accepting that their family is now complete, at least one or two pledge to
continue, and there is a surprise adoption within a family (unsurprisingly, for
NZers at least, it is in the Pacifica family). The balance achieved in such a
small sample is remarkable.

As someone who has experienced this, and spent the last 15 years in a community of loss, and infertility, I found this deeply moving and, best of all, accurate. I’m hopeful that it will inform many people – young women
and couples who may face infertility in the next few years, friends and family
of those going through infertility, and the wider public – that infertility is
common, it is stressful and expensive, and that there are no magic answers.

Monday, 22 August 2016

When in doubt, on Microblog Mondays, I blog about blogging, so I'm going to report that I have been doing lots of thinking about blogging lately, about
how much we should keep in mind the sensitivities or views of others who read
our blogs, whether or not they are our target readers.

Beyond normal tact and good manners, should we write mainly for our target readers, or should we
consider a wider readership when we write? And if we consider a wider
readership, how wide should we go? Should we have to qualify our statements all
the time, as some parenting after infertility bloggers feel they need to do, by
warning of triggers or emphasising that they are grateful for their children,
in an effort not to offend any readers who are not (yet or ever) doing so? Or
should we own our blogs and our opinions and experiences, as other bloggers do, with talk
about pregnancies and children and resulting photos of both, or with strong opinions about aspects of infertility? Where is the line
between blogging about our lives or opinions, and becoming competitive or
divisive, or is there a line at all?

These are questions I am considering at the moment, and some
thoughts are developing, but I’m not quite there yet - so no posts yet, but now the Olympics are over, and my sleep
patterns will return to normal, I promise you one or two that might spur some discussion. Though I can't promise any answers.

Monday, 8 August 2016

I was browsing Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly again
this morning over coffee, and found her simple statement that she had learned
from her research that “nothing is as important as human connection.” I thought
then of most people I know, and recognised that – excluding friendly but
peripheral relationships we all have - family is at the core of their human
connections. In fact, some, perhaps many, barely reach beyond family for their
human connections.

Probably, I thought, that’s why there is such a focus on having
children, being a family unit with a group of people they can focus on and rely
on. After all, I think that many people do struggle to make human connections
outside of family; connections where they feel that they belong, that they're
heard, that they have a purpose.

Maybe that's why people both pity us, and fear being us,
because they struggle to understand human connections outside of family, or to
see those connections as real or meaningful?

Yet I wonder too, how many people actually have real, deep,
meaningful and honest relationships, real connections where they are heard and
feel heard and accepted and understood as they are, with their families - or
even, outside their families?

This is one of the reasons why I like blogging – the quest
to hear and be heard, to accept and be accepted, to understand and be
understood, and to make true connections in a part of my life that few in my
day-to-day life understand.

However our infertility journey ends - with a baby or without - it is also a beginning. What differs though, I think, is the transition phase. For those of us without children, our transition phase is one where it is easy to focus on the end, not the beginning. It is a time of mourning, of grief, of loss, when it is easy to focus on what we don't have, what we wanted and tried so hard to get. It is a time that is feared by those still going through infertility, a time that so many cannot see beyond, a time that so often can be mistaken as the final destination.

But it is only a transition phase, and the mourning too comes to an end, allowing us to look ahead, to develop hope, to learn to appreciate the positives, to start anew. It's a beginning that is different to the one we had hoped for, but it is a beginning nonetheless, filled with promise and adventure and love and joy and new destinations. As hard as it is, we mustn't forget that.

Monday, 1 August 2016

We are very good in the infertility world at beating
ourselves up. But it wasn’t our fault, and none of us deserved this. We need to
grieve; then we need to let ourselves be happy.

It’s easier when we are fair to ourselves.

By recognising that we are not to blame, we can find it
easier to stop blaming others. By accepting our emotions, recognising them for what they
are, trying to understand them rather than banish them, we are better able to
recognise others’ emotions too, forgive their actions, understanding that we
don’t know how they feel. When we accept that we are not bad people for feeling grief
at what we’ve lost, or for feeling happiness despite what we’ve lost, we can stop being so judgemental
towards others, for what might otherwise have seemed to be selfish actions or
self-indulgent emotions.

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About Me

This is my blog on living and loving life without children after infertility. Currently I'm a blogger, a self-employed businessperson, amateur photographer, and keen traveller - though I'm an armchair traveller right now, along with the rest of the world.

This is a space for thoughts on my No Kidding lifestyle, the good and the bad, remembering what was lost, and celebrating what I have.

My husband and I are the stereotypical couple without children who love to travel. I am (at) travellingMali on Instagram and there I post photos of various trips internationally, past and present, and of NZ travels, along with the occasional photos from where I live.

In 2013 I travelled in Europe and the Middle East for five months, and kept a blog at Lemons to Limoncello.

I also had a travelblog some years ago, but stopped posting in 2012. You can find it at Mali's Travelalphablog. I'm hoping to start a travel blog again, so watch this space!